Games today:

(Ninoy Aquino Stadium)

5 p.m. — Rain or Shine vs Phoenix

7:30 p.m. — Ginebra vs Blackwater

Rain or Shine puts its pristine record on the line even while two replacement imports will debut for their respective teams in another action-packed Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Governors’ Cup double-header today at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

The red-hot Elasto Painters set their eyes on a fourth straight win against Phoenix, which will be parading a new reinforcement in Le’bryan Nash in their 5 p.m. encounter.

Showing patience and resilience, Rain or Shine overhauled a 21-point second quarter deficit and turned it into a 124-105 rout of NLEX to move up to the solo top spot in Group B.

“This good start is huge for us. We started 0-5 and 0-4 before. It’s like we’re in a different world, starting (the conference at) 3-0. We’re not used to this situation,” Elasto Painters head coach Yeng Guiao said.

Rain or Shine is playing on a different level with its collective team effort, stingy defense and running game which also keyed in its win over Blackwater and upset of Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.

The Elasto Painters had 38 fastbreak points and 21 markers off turnovers in beating the Road Warriors.

“But you can see that we’re playing better each day. I’m happy. I told them that I’m enjoying watching our brand of play. I enjoy seeing them play and I think the fans also enjoy watching us,” Guiao said.

Jhonard Clarito, Aaron Fullerk, Gian Mamuyac, Andrei Caracut and rookies Caelan Tiongson and Felix Pangilinan-Lemetti try to deliver the same explosiveness they’ve shown in previous games to hurdle the Fuel Masters.

Desperate to break into the win column after back-to-back losses, Phoenix parted ways with Jay McKinnis for Nash, who went undrafted in the 2015 National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft but had seen action in Japan, Korea, Uruguay, Israel, Mexico, and the NBA G-League.

“Hopefully, the change in import would do wonders for us,” Fuel Masters mentor Jamike Jarin said of his new reinforcement who flew in on Thursday.

The 32-year-old Nash last played for RANS Simba Bogor in the Indonesian Basketball League averaging 21.9 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 4.4 assists.

Blackwater is also fielding its new import George King when it takes on Ginebra at 7:30 p.m. in the other Group B pairing.

Down in a 0-3 hole at the bottom of the pool, the Bossing hope that King’s arrival will change their fortune after a woeful start following Ricky Ledo’s disappointing performance.

After consecutive awful outings, the Bossing sat out Ledo in the third game and went all-Filipino. They did give San Miguel Beer a scare in the first half but fizzled out in the next two quarters to absorb a 108-128 beating.